Road Trip: SEC football is a monkey business

Earlier this season, he was on LSU coach Les Miles’ back after an 0-2 start in the league. Miles soon gave the monkey to Florida coach Will Muschamp, who went on a two-game losing streak himself with losses to LSU and to Missouri. Miles, meanwhile, has won three straight, and his No. 14 Tigers can make it four against No. 4 Alabama on Saturday night in Tiger Stadium.

Muschamp pried the thing off of him on Saturday afternoon following a 38-20 upset of Georgia for his first victory over the Bulldogs in four seasons as the Gators’ head coach. And he did not mind acting out. He actually reached his left arm behind his back and slowly, painstakingly removed the invisible monkey.

“Let me lift this thing off my back,” he said in the postgame press conference. “One less thing for you to write about.”

Now if he wins a few more, such as Vanderbilt Saturday along with South Carolina on Nov. 15 and Eastern Kentucky on Nov. 22, he could finish 7-4 with a loss to Florida State in the finale and get athletic director Jeremy Foley off his back. The Gators only have 11 this season because the Idaho game was called for bad weather on Aug. 30 and not rescheduled.

Muschamp may just weather this storm.

“I just enjoy that those guys got a win,” Muschamp said on the SEC teleconference Wednesday. “There’s nothing like being in a victorious locker room, no matter who you’re playing. And certainly that one was important, but to be in that locker room and see those guys’ faces and see them genuinely enjoying being a part of that and understanding that situation, was awesome. It was good to see those faces.”

Monkey faces?

The monkey line came to him just before stepped to the podium after the win. “I was actually walking in with Steve McClain (Florida’s sports information director), and he said, ‘Hey, congrats.’ And I said, ‘Hey, I felt like I’ve just lifted the monkey off my back there so to speak.’ And it kind of hit me there walking in the pressroom.”

Now, it’s time to bury the monkey.

“Our LSU loss, it may have affected us psychologically the next week,” Muschamp said. “I don’t think there’s any question that we had some carryover there.” Why, of course, he was carrying a monkey on his back.

“It’s no different from a win. You’ve got to move on. You’ve got to bury it,” Muschamp said and giggled. “We didn’t physically bury anything, but we’re moving to the next game.”

Or at least pass the monkey.

Muschamp’s monkey that was Miles’ monkey is now Spurrier’s monkey. Apparently, the little critter traveled north from Jacksonville, Fla., for 550 miles to Knoxville, Tenn., and attached itself to South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier. His Gamecocks lost their second straight and fourth in five games at Tennessee, 45-42, in overtime, late Saturday night.

Spurrier was so flustered after the game, he spoke for only a minute, didn’t take questions and left. He has an open week to train the monkey to jump so he can try and return it to Muschamp on Nov. 15 in Gainesville.

But the SEC is nothing if not multi-faceted and multi-monkeyed, if you will. There is also a monkey on the back of Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin, who lost three straight by a combined 91 points before surviving Louisiana-Monroe, 21-16.

And there is also one on the back of Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze, who has lost back-to-back, back breaking games by a total of seven points in the final minutes to LSU and Auburn. And monkeys do not come off after wins over schools like Presbyterian, which the Rebels host Saturday. Or should that be moved to a Sunday as Ole Miss may be taking that football as religion a little too seriously?

Thought of including Arkansas as a monkey team, but the 17-game losing streak on the Razorbacks’ backs – including 13 by Coach Bret Bielema - requires more than a barrel of monkeys. That is an entire zoo on their back.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We anticipate they have quality backups,” LSU coach Les Miles deadpanned on injuries to Alabama starting left tackle Cameron Robinson and tailback T.J. Yeldon. He has a point. Alabama has only had the No. 1 recruiting classes in the nation, according to Rivals.com, in 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011.